Tonight’s concert provides a rare opportunity to hear Respighi’s exuberant, super-virtuoso Roman trilogy of symphonic poems, which paints in striking hues and colours the city’s Renaissance fountains, its imposing pine-groves and exuberant annual festivals, while relishing the dramatic contrasts between modern Rome and her Imperial splendour.

This concert was originally to have been conducted by Maestro Lorin Maazel, who sadly died in July 2014. The repertoire remains as he programmed it.